General Info:Demonstration video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrnkCaqijhs0.1 consists of all NPC and main character's idle anims, minus Cait Sith (I felt it didn't fit him, but I might add them in if enough people would like to see them), General fixes for cloud (crazy animations), and a new walk and run.

Final Fantasy VII Re-Animated is a project that aims to tweak and modify many of the animations in the game to bring it to more modern standards, as well as fix problems from the game that were not noticeable before we could introduce custom models, such as awkward standing animations, disjointed running animations and other general animations that did not have problems with the low-poly SD characters, thanks to their low fidelity - as well as adding idle animations that reduce the lifeless "puppet" look of the characters.

Technical

There are many animation files in this game, perhaps too many to count - and to edit an animation you need to physically find the one you are looking for, and then edit the animation frame-by-frame, which both can be a daunting task, especially one of the larger animations, which have upwards of 30+ frames. I'm working on making a list of associated animations that go with each character, but it's very empty right now as I've been focusing on fixing the animations I can find. If you would like to help, see the FAQ section below for details, as well as the warning for if you want to help.

Examples:Standing:Running:Crazy:

FAQ:

Q: How long did this take?A: I can't give you a definitive answer, but so far, editing just one of the longer animations alone took around 4-5 hours, and I've done a lot more than just one over the course of the week, so ball-park it

Q: Can I help?A: Most definitely. There are a number of ways you can help, such as editing animations I haven't touched, or creating a list of animations and what each of them are, and what characters they apply to (Ilfana can aid in this, but I can't seem to get it to work) Recommended programs to use are either Kimera 0.93, or Kimera 0.96b, since the latest version works well for field and battle this time around, and is a little more stable, and has an interpolate option to make smoother animations (I used that to create idle animations)

WARNING 1: ALWAYS back the animation before you edit it, so you have the original. Otherwise, not only do you risk having to reinstall if you want the old one, but now if you dramatically fern up the one you are working on you are permanently stuck with a broken animation. And with the amount of frames some of them have, that is not very encouraging.

WARNING 2:Kimera 96's interpolate option is good, but if you need to use it, make sure you do not EVER use it until you are completely done editing an animation. If you don't, and try to highlight a piece to modify after you've interpolated, it WILL crash Kimera 96 EVERY TIME. The reason for this seems to be that kimera's animation fields don't allow for decimals, only integers - but interpolating animations obviously, causes some of those in-between values to become decimals - so when you highlight it to work on it, the rotation value will be a number that technically cannot be there and will cause a crash. The only workaround for this right now is to interpolate the animation, save, and open the model in Kimera 93 and continue work from there, until it's fixed. (EDIT: 93 still has crashes with it as well, though not as often for some reason)

Q: Can battle animations be edited?A: Yep. I haven't done much of them yet, but you can do things like add more frames to change the speed of the animation, or even add new poses or transitions if you so desire, using the bone rotation and root translation options in kimera.

Q: I don't like animation A/needs tweaking/looks weird, can you change it?A: Of course! As long as you provide valid criticism and I have the free-time, I will most definitely look into it. Plus, nothings stopping you if you want to take a crack at it

Q: I've made a list of some animations and what they do/who they are associated with, where should I put it?A: You can either post it directly in this thread, or PM me, and I'll add it to my list

Q: Can I be an internal tester?A: Nope, because a public version has already been released.

Q: CAN I HAZ DISSIDIA MODULZ?A: To put it bluntly, unless you own dissidia and want to figure out how to put stuff into your own game, no. Sorry.

That's some great stuff.My only suggestion is maybe to slow down the world map running?It'd be nice to make it look less like Cloud's running on a soapy floor, and more like he's actually moving as much as he looks like he is.

Sephiroth: Face it Cloud, all you are is an empty puppet. (Advent Children Complete)

Cloud Strife: So what's going to happen now? Kadaj: [giggles] Mother's going to tell me. Cloud Strife: I guess a remnant wouldn't really know. [Kadaj glares at Cloud menacingly] Kadaj: So what if I'm a puppet? [Kadaj powers up the materia in his arm] Kadaj: Once upon a time...you were too! [attacks Cloud]

I can see now why I've always disliked the normally-proportioned models being in place of the Chibi's in the field. This definitely goes a long way to making them look much more natural on the field. While I probably still personally wouldn't use PRP style characters, I think this goes hand in hand perfectly with them - nice work.The idle animation still looks a little robotic though from what I can see - especially at 1:33 - He just looks a bit constricted. Maybe tweaking the forearms a little would help.

Slightly off-topic but still very important - The Cloud model you've got running at the end of the video, is that the stock TA Cloud? Seems like the face looks a little better than usual.

I second the "looks like cloud is running on a soapy floor in the world map" notion :p

All in all; looks great.

A few minor things I noticed, just from the video, so they may already be tweaked.

1. Cloud's field running - similar to the world map, but it seems like some of it is over-exaggerated. I think the new animation looks like he's marathon running. Maybe to make it look a little more realistic, slow him down a little, (like with the world map, trying to match his pace with his rate of movement), and maybe adjust his body angle. Here are two decent reference videos, the only suggestion I make that differs from these two videos is the possibility of adding a lean in his body, a slight angle forward. I just see Cloud as the "Heroic Charge" type of runner, but it might be awkward to have him doing it all the time. Definitely a trial and error type of thing

2. Standing animation is a great improvement. That said, a few tweaks would make it look a little more realistic. I'm not sure how easily it can be done, but would it be possible to add a sway, more than the lifting, to the arms while he stands. A combination of the both maybe.

I'm curious, how many frames/how much time-loop do you have to work with on the standing still animation. Is it possible that we could have cloud doing something, stretching after a certain amount of time. Like in a lot of newer games if you let your characters stand they tend to do whatever they please in a sense. ( just an example) The only real concern with this if it can be done, is if it will interrupt the long speech sections where all characters stand while speech bubbles go wild.

I just mean to be constructive, The way it is, it is a huge step into bringing FF7 to the modern era of games. It's funny how a lot of details such as this are some of the defining points for modern gaming and modern playable characters as well as NPCs

Thanks for all the input, I was definitely going for an exaggerated run when I made it, but I can definitely see that looking odd in game (in fact, it looked odd for a while for me but I got used to it)

I will probably modify it to be less pronounced for field, and have two separate versions to choose from depending on what a person wants.

Also, about the arms, that's more the field model's fault, because of how I resized the arms when I was editing them instead of the animation. It's easily fixed and would probably work better on custom models.

Actually, it's the other way around. The less frames you have the faster the animation will play. I've tweaked it a bit so he doesn't kick up as much so it's more of a casual run now, and I can probably finish it off by interpolating 1 or 2 frames at certain points to make it a little more natural.

I might do a chibi version as well, at least for the idle animations, as they would probably benefit much from having some as well, though for now the primary focus is to sort of "prepare" field for more realistic models, as well as go hand in hand with the PRP.

I'm curious, how many frames/how much time-loop do you have to work with on the standing still animation. Is it possible that we could have cloud doing something, stretching after a certain amount of time. Like in a lot of newer games if you let your characters stand they tend to do whatever they please in a sense. ( just an example) The only real concern with this if it can be done, is if it will interrupt the long speech sections where all characters stand while speech bubbles go wild.

I just mean to be constructive, The way it is, it is a huge step into bringing FF7 to the modern era of games. It's funny how a lot of details such as this are some of the defining points for modern gaming and modern playable characters as well as NPCs

Great work!

I'm not sure what the hard limit is, but Barret's current idle anim (which I have to redo) has 80+ frames and it works fine ingame, so we have a lot of leeway with this as far as I can tell, which is good. I was thinking about implementing idle actions in addition to the "breathing" (I was sort of inspired by what I remember from field models in FF8 doing that) but like you say, not sure if it will interrupt long speech segments. Though it's definitely possible to add, it just needs to have a lot of frames, and be way later in the anim cycle to get it to work how we want it.

I was thinking about having specific characters do certain things, such as cloud putting one arm on his hip and shifting his weight to one side, Tifa doing a stretch like her victory animation in battle, maybe Barret rubbing his gun-arm, etc.

I'll probably look into it after I finish up adding idle anims to the main cast. If we have it very late in a frame cycle I'm sure it won't be too much of a bother during cutscenes, especially if it's only something like placing a hand on a hip or stretching. Then again, It'll have to be added after I interpolate an animation (Duplicating and manually entering values for 100+ frames is a bit excessive) so until kimera can properly edit interpolated parts to a bone I'll have to be very careful how I do it. Maybe I could make a really quick animation with like 3 frames so when I interpolate it it becomes more smooth and plays at a proper speed? That would avoid the crash issue.

But much of this is just speculation for now, so I'll see how it goes first.